Investigatory Powers Bill

Chris Philp Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th June 2016 Commons Chamber

It is telling that in the last decade every single security service counter-terrorism case involved communications data and 95% of serious and organised crime investigations in which the CPS was involved concerned locations data. Those facts speak for themselves. Opposition Front Benchers have been very constructive in dealing with this and in the amendments they have tabled, and those on the Government Front Bench have responded in the same way. For these reasons—I will not add to the very good reasons already given by my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle—I support the Bill and the amendments that the Government have accepted.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I want to speak briefly about clause 68, Government amendment 51 and amendment 145. Clause 68 is welcome and delivers the manifesto commitment to introduce judicial oversight of these investigatory powers over journalists. As the noble Lord Falconer has pointed out, no such protections exist under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. These new requirements for judicial consent by the commissioner are very welcome.

I very much welcome Government amendment 51, which explicitly acknowledges the public interest in protecting a journalist’s sources and makes it clear that the commissioner must weigh that against any other public interest, which must be overriding. I hope that gives the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) at least some comfort. Were we to adopt her amendment 145, I think the implication would be that the judgment would have to be made in open court, and given the difficult and potentially wide definition of journalistic material that now exists, that might impose a rather onerous requirement. Were the Government so minded, they might at some later time fine tune clause 68 to say that if the judicial commissioner found the situation slightly ambiguous, they could go to the journalist to seek clarification; if there were cases in which they were finding it difficult to make that judgment, they could seek further and better particulars. However, I think that Government amendment 51 is extremely helpful in addressing many of the concerns expressed about that important issue.

[The Solicitor General]

It is a pleasure to speak at the end of a wide-ranging but important debate about the new power on internet connection records. It is right to remind ourselves of the context of the debate. Only last week, two individuals received significant prison sentences in Britain’s biggest known gun smuggling operation. It was analysis of communications data that provided vital evidence in that case. It allowed the investigative team to attribute telephone numbers and SIM cards to the defendants and to identify key locations.

However, communications data are changing. The world in which the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) and I started out practising is no longer the world as it is today. Telephone calls are very often not the means by which criminals and terrorists conduct their activity. Much of that has moved on to the internet via WhatsApp, via internet chatrooms and via the electronic internet communications that have become the mainstay of many criminal enterprises. It is vital that the legislation that we pass in this House not only attempts to keep pace with this breathtaking change, but tries to get ahead of it as far as possible.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Many internet service providers, for example, offer services here but they are predominantly based in other countries. That is why the Government have been progressing, and continue to progress, discussions with the United States’ authorities about the whole question of the circumstances under which warrants issued lawfully in the United Kingdom can be exercised in the United States. We have always asserted territorial jurisdiction of those warrants under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. In fact, the previous Labour Government, who introduced RIPA, also established that territorial jurisdiction. It has never been tested, but we are putting that discussion with the United States into place.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

The Home Secretary recently met my constituent Barry Bednar, whose 14-year-old son Breck was groomed online and, tragically, murdered. Could she explain to the House how the provisions in the Bill will help to prevent a repetition of Breck’s tragic murder?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has represented his constituents very well in that matter, and it was an absolutely tragic case. I know the enormous distress that has been caused to Breck’s parents, not just by the initial grooming of their son and its sad consequences, but by other actions that have taken place since in relation to the case. What we are doing in this legislation is important, because it will ensure that the authorities, the agencies, law enforcement and the police will have the powers to enable them better to investigate incidents such as that which led to Breck’s sad death.

Part 1 of the Bill responds to recommendations by David Anderson and others by restricting the use of powers outside the legislation to undertake equipment interference. Where the police or the security and intelligence agencies wish to interfere with a computer or a smartphone to obtain vital evidence and intelligence, a warrant under the Bill will be required. As I have indicated, the Bill also responds to the recommendations of the Intelligence and Security Committee and places a statutory bar on the making of requests, in the absence of a warrant, to other countries to intercept the communications of a person in the UK. There can be no suggestion that the security and intelligence agencies could use their international relationships to avoid the safeguards in the Bill. In answer to a couple of questions earlier I referred to the territorial jurisdiction of the Bill. For the avoidance of doubt, I clarify that I meant, of course, the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the Bill.

The House will know that interception—the obtaining of the contents of a communication, by, for example, listening to a telephone call or reading the contents of an email—is one of the most sensitive and intrusive capabilities available to law enforcement and to the security and intelligence agencies. It is also one of the most valuable, and over the past decade, interception in some form has played a part in every top-priority MI5 investigation. The Bill restricts that power to only a handful of agencies and allows for warrants to be issued only where they are necessary and proportionate for the prevention or detection of serious crime, in the interests of national security or in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom, where that is linked to national security.

Authorising warrants is one of the most important means by which I, the Foreign Secretary and the Northern Ireland Secretary hold law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies to account for their actions. In turn, we are accountable to the House and, through its elected representatives, to the public.

Part 2 of the Bill will introduce an important new safeguard. As now, a Secretary of State will need to be satisfied that activity is necessary and proportionate before a warrant can be issued, but, in future, it will not be possible to issue a warrant until the decision to issue it has been formally approved by a judicial commissioner. That will place a double lock on the authorisation of warrants. It will preserve that vital element of democratic accountability, but it will, for the first time, introduce independent judicial authorisation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

Clearly, when we grant the Government powers to infringe on our privacy, such powers must be deemed absolutely necessary. No case better shines a light on what may be considered necessary than one that arose in my constituency a short time ago. Barry Bednar’s 14-year-old son was groomed online over the course of some months. He was lured to the flat of someone called Lewis Daynes, where he was brutally murdered. When speaking to Barry Bednar and the boy’s mother, Lorin LaFave, it is very clear that powers such as these are absolutely necessary to protect young people like Breck from being groomed online, to help the authorities to investigate such offences, and to prevent further offences from taking place.

We always face a choice in these matters, and I choose to stand with victims like Breck. I choose to stand with Breck’s mother and father in doing everything we can to prevent, to investigate, and to catch the perpetrators of crimes like these. If the price I have to pay for that is that my internet browsing history gets stored or the authorities have certain powers to intercept my communications, then I am very happy to pay it in order to protect young men and women like Breck Bednar. That is why I will support Second Reading of the Bill. I thank the Home Secretary for taking the time to meet Barry Bednar and Lorin LaFave about two weeks ago. They were very grateful for the time that she took to listen to their concerns, and I want to put on record my thanks to her for doing that.

Since the shadow Home Secretary is now in his place, I will take the opportunity to respond briefly to a point that he raised in his speech. He made great play of the question of economic wellbeing, which concerned him. He mentioned an example from 1972, and the fact that he had to go back as far as 1972 to find an example tells us something. I draw his attention to clause 18(4), which I believe addresses his concern. It states that the test of economic wellbeing can be applied only to interception requests that are not in the United Kingdom. The concerns that he raised about the conduct of trade unions and so on would not apply because the test relates only to matters outside the United Kingdom. I hope that that gives him the reassurance that he requires.

I believe that the Bill is proportionate and reasonable. I am comforted by the judicial oversight that is in place, and I will most certainly support the Bill in the Division Lobby this evening.